Unfriended(Love in New Highland Book 1)(9)

I tilted my head. Sloane isn't a drinker, but I've witnessed her in this  state a time or three. Some people become unrecognizable. Not her. When  she abuses the booze, she merely becomes herself to the power of ten.

So no jumping on tables for her. No declaring undying love for the  ceiling tiles. No, she'll just chatter away, occasionally tossing out  lame witticisms-like that thing about Aura's front-sometimes going into  hysterics at her own jokes. Drunk, she's a giggler.

She wasn't giggling now, though. This wasn't a happy drunk.

She wasn't even smiling.

Nor, for that matter, was I.

I eyed her intently. She'd rested her head against the back of the  couch, exposing her throat. Her collar bones were shadowed above her  neckline. Some women have pretty collar bones, others are meh. Charis's  happen to be damn tempting. Not as nice as Aura's, naturally, I felt  obligated to qualify.

But still … nice. Very nice.

Sitting here fixated on Sloane's clavicles, I became aware for the first  time in a long time that she wasn't just my biologically female best  friend.

She was also a woman.

Remember, Sloane isn't my type at all. Not remotely voluptuous and  cuddly. I actually like her face, but technically her nose is too long,  her jaw too square, and her hair, as she puts it, flat.

I'm being straight up about Aura. She's my physical ideal. Charis, on  the other hand, is five feet eight inches of sticks and angles. She  cannot possibly be more opposite to my idea of a sexy shape.

The women I go for know how to maximize their looks with stretchy,  form-fitting clothes. Charis dresses like the academic she is. Sexless  button-downs are her friend. If you go for the old-fashioned librarian  type, there's your girl.

So I shouldn't have been thinking of her as a woman.

A woman who was here, while Aura was not and never would be again.

Never again.

Aura's gone.

I'm finally fucking free to fuck any woman I want.

Which should have warned me.

Instead I thought how easy it would be to lean over and press my lips to  the deep hollow at the base of Charis's throat. It kind of killed me  that I'd never managed to land that kiss when I was thirteen.

What if … I stopped the thought out of habit.                       
       
           



       

But somehow not my eyes.

My gaze moved lower. In the dim lighting, I could see the two little  bumps of her breasts making faint shadows in the black fabric. They rose  and fell with her breaths.

Kind of amazing when you think about it, but I've never fucked a girl  with breasts that little. What shape were they? Are we talking tiny buds  here, or puffy points? Forward, up, or side tilt?

"Hey, Charis," I said huskily.

She didn't move. "Yes?"

But I didn't know what I'd meant to say, so I shut up. My eyes were  still fixed to her chest. Assisted by the booze, my mind was going  places it hadn't gone in a long time.

Charis and sex.

Two subjects I tried not to think about together.

She was twenty-six. I was twenty-two. Once upon a time, the age difference had seemed all-important.

Once upon a time, I'd been a kid.

I've come a long way since then.

Remember I told you about that time when Charis rejected me? It didn't  just fly over my head like I made it sound. A few tears might have been  shed. Picture a romantic little fuck with sweaty hands, planning out his  wedding.

Sure, it's funny now. One day I'll tell Sloane about it and we'll laugh together.

But it was a bad blow. It motivated me. I started winning track meets  and stepping up the training, bulking up until there was no way anybody  could mistake me for a beanpole kid.

Charis Sloane became the last girl to tell this geek "no."

And females lapped it up. I get shit for being cocky about my talents,  but there's no other way to put it. Starting around fifteen, I was  chased and called and ambushed and stalked. Maybe I should have been  above all that, but sorry to disillusion you, nope. I got off on the  attention. My tastes migrated away from tomboys and towards stacked  sunnybunnies.

That became known as the Age of Cock. I'm not proud of my boywhore behavior in those seed-sowing years, but live and learn.

I learned a fucking lot, too. I learned some girls are sweethearts, some  are bitches, but all of them have pussies that beg to be worshiped. I  learned the female body is heaven's gift. I learned nothing comes close  to the thrill of making a woman come over and over and over again.

And each of those girls I fucked I hoped would turn out to be awesome.

Turns out there was a whole lot of fucking but not a whole lot of  awesome. I had some fun relationships but nothing blow-your-mind. Not  until Aura. And now that was done.

In all this time, Charis Sloane had been placed firmly in the Do Not Fuck camp.

But now, now …

One of my favorite things to do is to drive my cock between a woman's  breasts and finger her nipples at the same time. Charis's breasts are  way too small for that maneuver.

Still. Do her nipples harden easily with a light caress, or do they need  to be pinched into tight peaks? Or are they shy things that needed  coaxing?

My eyes dipped further, down to her thighs. They were smooth and sleek,  what I could see of them. Was she wearing panties under that nightshirt?  Since she knew I'd be coming over, my guess was, yes, she'd put on  underwear. But what if she hadn't … ?

Did she groom her pussy?

Was it pretty?

Was she a wet girl?

Yeah.

Fucking Christ. This was happening.

Imagining what lay inside my best friend's pants was happening.

Why the fuck?

Maybe instead of my skull, the liquor had gone straight to my other  head. Because I have to say, raunchy thoughts were zinging around like a  squash ball in my brain. I literally could not stop them. The Platonic  Shutter had lifted from my eyes and it was not reversible.

Awareness of what I was doing should have stopped me cold.

Instead, the air hissed into my lungs and held.

More than anything, I wanted to know what Charis looked like naked. I wanted to know now.

You'd think alcohol would dull your olfactory senses. Not so much. I smelled her there beside me. Fuck. Charis.

I called her Sloane, and Charis, and Char, and anything I felt like at  the time. Right now, she was Charis, with her familiar, homey aroma. I  knew it like I knew the smell of grass and earth.

I'd missed it these last months.

It smelled wonderful.

"Did you just eat oranges?" I ground out.

She didn't open her eyes. "No. Why?"

"Clean your place with some citrus spray shit?"

She chortled. "Does it look like I've cleaned? Anyway I don't have time.  I've been teaching a class and living off of fast food, y'know."

Abruptly, in a single movement, she stood up.

Charis has a graceful way of moving. I've been aware of it before, admired it. Now it disturbed me.

I leaned forward, tracking her movements. Tried to clean up my thoughts, bring them back on track to normal buddy-buddy shit.

"I forgot you were teaching that postmodernism class. How'd that go?" My  voice sounded too gravelly, but laid back as usual. I think.                       
       
           



       

She was fiddling at her desk. "I couldn't sell them on Foucault or Kuhn  but they sorta dug Gould. There goes my theory about catchy titles, too.  I was sure 'Discipline and Punish' would pique their interest. Instead  they were all like, the Panopticon never even got built, this is so  lame."

I struggled to focus. I knew she was going for her PhD in one of the  most rarefied of (to me) useless subjects-the History and Philosophy of  Science-and had taught a new course of her own design this winter  quarter. It was her first solo teaching gig, an important step on the  road to her doctorate, so a big deal.

"You want to rant about your students?" I offered casually. "Lay it on me."

That sounded good, like I was interested. And most times I did get a  kick out of Sloane's rants. When my thoughts weren't straying  dangerously afield.

"Nah. I know they don't really care about the course, they're just  filling in credits with electives. But hey, I'll probably take you up on  the rant offer later this week while I'm grading their papers."

Her muted response seemed strange. Usually the subject of her work has her off and running.

You know how most people have favorite actors and singers? My girl has  favorite historians. She honestly can't see why everyone else isn't as  wild about them as she is. Once she starts raving on about her idols,  the only way I've found to stop her is to challenge her to an epic  battle of trivia and then launch a full body tickle attack.

Tickle.

Did she ever get aroused when a man-

Fuck.

"Let's listen to something," she said brightly, tapping keys and adjusting her desktop speakers.

Nope, I decided. It wasn't just me. I wasn't imagining things. Charis's  mood was off, too. Not where mine was, obviously, given her choice of  music. Personally, I'd have picked something more mellow and  mood-setting than the harsh dissonance of Coil.